4.5 out of 5 Stars!

Man, can any band get closer to the Genesis (Peter Gabriel-era) sound? I doubt it, and I LOVE this talented Italian group for the painstaking effort!

Each album is a pure thrill, including Ghost, The Watch’s debut release. Whereas the album Twilight, issued several years earlier from vocalist Simone Rossetti’s “prequel” group The Night Watch, wasn’t quite as closely connected to the sound of early Genesis, especially when it came to the keyboards, and also included a few influences from additional classic Prog-Rock bands, Ghost, however, with a whole new cadre of musicians backing Rossetti, does indeed delve strictly into Genesis territory, with the tones of the guitars and bass and organ and Mellotron being accurately and eerily replicated.

Indeed, I dare any Genesis fan to listen to “DNAlien” or “The Ghost and the Teenager,” for example, and deny that either track would have sounded right at home on an album such as Nursery Cryme, Foxtrot, or Selling England by the Pound. Three other tunes—”Heroes,” “Moving Red,” and “…And the Winner is…”—also continue the Genesis-cloning to my great delight and astonishment. Actually, the only track that truly does veer slightly away from the classic Genesis sound, due mostly to adventurous synth settings, is “Riding the Elephant,” although Rosetti’s Gabriel-like vocals remain fully intact, therefore the song comes off as if Genesis had simply done “mild experimentation.”

Anyway, before I learned about The Watch, had some casual huckster tried to pass off Ghost as a “long-lost Genesis album from 1972” or “a collection of rare Genesis studio outtakes from 1973,” I would probably not have questioned him. But I do know better, and I pray all other Genesis fanatics will also discover The Watch and eventually savor the music in the band’s ever-expanding catalogue of releases.

Get The Album Now!